Please note: You need to have 'Active content' enabled in your IE browser in order to see the index of articles on this webpage

Zimbabwe vows to pull troops out of diamond fields

By ANGUS SHAW

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwe has promised to withdraw its
soldiers from diamond fields in the east, an official newspaper reported
Sunday - a week after a rights group alleged the military was committing
killings and abuses in the area.

The move appeared to be an attempt
to diffuse criticism over the military's takeover of the Marange diamond
fields and ensure that Zimbabwe's precious stones won't be tainted with the
"blood diamond" label by activists, which would reduce their
value.

The Ministry of Mines denied last month's report by Human Rights
Watch that said troops had killed more than 200 people at the Marange
diamond fields while forcing children to search for diamonds and beating
villagers who got in the way.

Instead, Zimbabwe's coalition
government said the military was there to secure the area, about 150 miles
(250 kilometers) east of Harare, where mining is managed by the state's
Mining Development Corp.

The 60,000-hectare (140,000-acre) Marange
diamond fields were discovered in 2006 - at the height of Zimbabwe's
political, economic and humanitarian crisis. Villagers rushed to the area
and began finding diamonds close to the surface.

The army took over
the Marange diamond fields in late October 2008. Before that, the police
were in control and Human Rights Watch said there were less abuses
then.

Officials of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme - the
world's diamond control body - recently visited the fields following
allegations that security chiefs and loyalists of President Robert Mugabe
were either perpetrating or tolerating rights abuses and illegal diamond
exports.

"There cannot be effective security where diamonds are concerned
with the involvement of the military," the Kimberley delegation said in a
report to the Zimbabwean government, quoted by the state-run Sunday
Mail.

The Kimberley report also noted illegal digging and processing of
diamonds in Marange and called for stricter controls to stop diamond
smuggling across the porous eastern border with Mozambique.

Mines
Minister Obert Mpofu on Saturday told Kimberley inspectors that the troops
would be withdrawn from the diamond fields and the country would meet
international mining standards, the Sunday Mail reported.

"We are
going to work toward getting in line with the standards proposed," the paper
quoted Mpofu as saying during the meeting.

Mpofu reportedly also told the
Kimberley delegation that the coalition government, formed between Mugabe
and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in February, planned to relocate
villagers away from the diamond fields and find investors to help provide
security.

Deputy Mines Minister Murisi Zwizwai - a member of Tsvangirai's
former opposition party - said the coalition government had "agreed to
remove the soldiers, but it will be done in phases while proper security
settings would be put in place," the Sunday Mail reported.

It is
estimated the diamonds could be worth $200 million a month to the
cash-strapped southern African nation, which is desperately trying to raise
international aid to kickstart the economy. But the unity government has
also been under foreign pressure to show signs of reform.

Withdrawing
troops from the diamond fields would deflect further negative publicity,
show the government's commitment to meeting international obligations and
ensure greater revenue from the diamonds that are sold.

On June 26, the
New York-based Human Rights Watch cited accounts from more than 100
witnesses, miners, police officers, soldiers and children alleging human
rights abuses by troops.

It said its researchers had gathered evidence of
mass graves and accounts of an incident last year when military helicopters
fired on miners, while armed soldiers on the ground chased villagers
away.

It said many victims were unwilling to come forward out of fear of
the military.

Human Rights Watch also alleged that some of the income
from the diamond fields went to officials of Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, long
accused of trampling on human rights and democracy in Zimbabwe.

Illegal gems still a
sparkling opportunity

From The Sunday Independent (SA), 5 July

Fiona Forde

Long before Human Rights
Watch shone a light on the murky side of Zimbabwe's diamond trade,
Partnership African Canada (PAC) produced a footprint of fraud in the
country's diamond exports. Matching production over a four-year period
against official export figures, the Canadian NGO claimed in a March report
that either Zimbabwe was sitting on a stockpile of 1.33 million carats or
the diamonds had been laundered into the international system to prop up the
kleptocratic regime. Like Human Rights Watch, PAC painted a picture of
forced labour, loss of life and human rights abuses on the military-
controlled mines. Yet, because the area is not classified as a conflict
zone, the Zimbabwean authorities cannot be held accountable by the Kimberley
Process (KP), the industry's so-called watchdog. "We have made the case that
when governments take control of diamond fields and then force miners to
work as slaves to prop up an anti-democratic regime, these are also blood
diamonds," or gems that are mined in conflict zones or used to fund rebel
groups, PAC researcher Shawn Blore explains. "That's the case in Zimbabwe
and which we would have liked the KP to take a strong stand on. That's what
a serious regulatory agency would do." Instead, it took half a year of
deliberations and a second report on the matter before the KP decided to act
and agree to send in an investigative team.

Meanwhile, the diamond trade
continues unabated. This is not the first time a flaw in the KP has come to
light. Not quite a watchdog, and not a regulatory body either, comprised as
it is of governments of diamond-producing countries, members of industry and
civil society, it begs the question why the KP was established at all. It
was largely in response to the rapid rise of blood diamonds, an African
phenomenon of the 1990s, Blore explains. Angola was one of the first
countries to look to the gems as a means to fund their conflict when the end
of the Cold War killed their endless supply of weapons. Jonas Savimbi's
Unita, long supported by the United States to fight the then Soviet-backed
MPLA, immediately took over the country's diamond fields to help fuel the
feud. Whether Sierra Leone's rebel leader Foday Sankoh was watching
Savimbi's moves or Charles Taylor was watching out for him from Liberia is
unclear, but it was around that time that the war broke out in the West
African country for control of their own diamond fields, the tenth largest
producer in the world. It was the precious stones that also exacerbated the
civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and according to PAC
"provided funds for rebel armies and a financial incentive for foreign
governments such as Rwanda and Zimbabwe to prolong their
interventions".

There were many other countries that also fell prey
to the curse of the conflict stones to the extent that in the 1990s African
blood diamonds accounted for 15% to 20% of global production. "It all
coincided with the dot.com boom in the US," the world's largest consumer of
diamonds, Blore explains, and demand for the precious stones was never so
high and consequently there were never so many folk walking the world with
so much blood on their hands and adorning their necks. The illicit stones
would be ferried to the nearest border and before long would glisten on the
world's main markets alongside legally obtained diamonds. Many years would
pass before the international community began to address the malaise and in
2003 the KP was finally started, to curb the flow of war diamonds. In many
respects, the successes of the KP have not gone unnoticed. According to the
Diamond Council, blood diamonds now account for only 1% of the global
trade.

According to Blore, Congo Brazzaville was forced to shut down
its operations when it was discovered that exports outweighed local
production by a long shot, with the balance believed to be coming from the
DRC. Sierra Leone and Liberia now have rigorous systems in place to oversee
diamond exports, "and we would hope we will not see a war of pillage there
again". However, many NGOs are now beginning to realise that the process
doesn't go far enough. They argue that the focus of the body's work is too
narrowly fixed on conflict diamonds, while millions of carats are still
extracted in inhumane conditions, as the Zimbabwe case showed. Blore also
cites the case of Angola - the world's sixth-largest producer - where the
official structure is ridden with problems. Two-thirds of the country's
diamonds are extracted by companies, in each of which the government holds a
golden stake. The remaining third is extracted by artisanal diggers whose
work is officially classed as illegal in Angola, yet who sell their stones
to a government-sanctioned buying agency. Because it is below the radar,
prices are also below the going rate.

"I would regard that as
being a misappropriation of state resources," Blore argues, "but the Angolan
government doesn't see it that way." And neither does the KP, it would seem.
"Lebanon is exporting more diamonds than it imports, which we all find a
little suspicious," while "Guinea has had this 500 percent increase in
diamond exports in the past few years", Blore continues. The global
recession is not helping matters, as it has impacted heavily on demand and
forced prices downward and many official producers to scale back until the
prices return, something which is drawing the casual buyers and smugglers
back into business. Itinerant buyers are now busy roaming this continent
buying up hot diamonds, rather than blood diamonds, for hard cash and at
very reduced prices. Africa accounts for 65 percent of the $12 billion (R93
billion) rough diamond trade, according to the Rapaport Group. Of the top 10
producers, seven are African. The abundance of the stones here has attracted
hordes of artisanal diggers into the ring to try and make a living. Because
it is so unregulated, however, they more often than not sell themselves
short, allowing a concentration of the wealth to build up at the end of the
supply chain, far away from the source.

A digger who happens upon a
two-and-a-half carat diamond can expect to sell it on to a causal buyer for
about $500 on a good day. When times are tough, he is likely to sell it for
much, much less. A typical stone only yields 40 percent of its weight after
polishing, reducing the chunk to a one carat piece by the time it reaches
the high street store and where it will sell for around $10 000, according
to Blore. From when it leaves the digger to when it is placed in that shop
window, the diamond will change hands several times. The illegal buyer will
smuggle it out of the continent and on to a polishing destination, where the
diamond is instantly classed as legal, regardless of its source. This
highlights another flaw in the KP chain. The KP certification of
conflict-free diamonds only controls export as far as a country's borders.
Diamonds are notoriously easy to smuggle and a fistful of the stones, which
are not easily detected and which can be stowed away neatly in a piece of
carry-on luggage, could fetch half a million dollars once they reach the
polishing houses. It is odd, therefore, that the KP does not concern itself
with smuggling, considering how much is surely lost in potential earnings.
It is also strange that the KP has allowed these cracks to rip the whole
system apart? Or is it that the KP is more of a PR exercise and less of a
body bent on putting right a very corrupt industry?

Donors sidestep Zim's tainted central
bank

From The Cape Argus, 5 July

Peta Thornycroft

Donors and potential investors are
trying to avoid channelling their money through the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe, the architect of hyperinflation and politically motivated exchange
rates. A multi-donor trust fund is being set up according to World Bank
procedures and will be the future route for most cash provided by foreign
donors. This will be for future humanitarian aid and funds raised to oil the
creaking transitional period. The fund will allow donors to circumvent the
tainted central bank. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai told a press
conference about the fund on Tuesday on his return from a three-week trip to
the US and Europe, where he raised considerable political goodwill and
support for Zimbabwe, but little hard cash. A financial source, who did not
want to be named, said the R300 million given to Zimbabwe by South Africa in
January had "disappeared". The source said no one was sure how the money had
been spent. An International Monetary Fund technical team investigating
Zimbabwe's revenue collection and tax regimen last month, found that while
Zimbabwe's monthly revenue had leapt from about R160m in February to about
R640m, the central bank had failed basic "transparency" tests, and was still
involved in "quasi-fiscal" activities.

Central bank governor Gideon Gono
had practically taken over the economy in the past two years, bypassing the
finance ministry. The "quasi-fiscal" activities included printing massive
amounts of money, fuelling hyperinflation, and skewing exchange rates to
benefit President Robert Mugabe and his cronies. This fuelled the savage
contraction of productive sectors. The central bank has also failed to
produce an audit for the past five years. Gono handed out billions of rands
for many Zanu PF-aligned businesses and individuals in unsecured loans,
which were then wiped out by inflation and for which there are few records.
"There is no way any serious investor or any donor, whether giving money for
reconstruction, transitional or humanitarian aid, will go near the central
bank," said an informed source last week. Economist John Robertson said the
central bank could not be trusted. As the inclusive government emerged in
February, Gono finally admitted the bank had helped itself to many
companies' export earnings and even dipped into funds belonging to NGOs. "It
has rendered itself irrelevant," Robertson said. A political source in
Harare said last week: "Gono still has access to export money, and other
undetected revenue streams, but he is being a bit more circumspect these
days, and keeping a lower profile, as (Finance Minister Tendai) Biti is
watching him." There was no one available at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
last week to comment on the plans by donors to marginalise it.

Service providers switch off central bank phones

HARARE - Mobile
airtime services providers NetOne and Zellco have switched off more than 1
000 contract lines that had been leased to Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
employees as a result of failure to settle bills.

The failure to settle
bills to the state-run NetOne and Zellco is a result of the adoption of
multiple foreign currencies by the government which has seen the central
bank abandoning all money printing activities, resulting in the Zimbabwe
dollar being shelved until next year.

Central bank officials said first
to be affected were employees that were using Zellco contract
lines.

"People who were first affected were the ones that use lines from
Zellco as our bills have not been paid for some time," an official
said.

"Initially we thought this was only affecting middle and junior
managers but to our surprise most lines belonging even to divisional chiefs
have also been disconnected. NetOne started disconnecting some of the lines
at the start of this month and there seems to be no solution in
sight."

As a result of failure to settle the bills most central bank
employees have acquired lines from Econet and Telecel.

"What can we
do?" a senior manager whose line was also disconnected said. "We just have
to adjust to the fact that our lines were switched off and look for other
service providers. First they tried to take our cars and now we are being
told nobody can resign."

Central bank spokesman Kumbirai Nhongo was
continuously said not to be in the office whilst his mobile phone was not
reachable.

Although NetOne has put a facility of 30 percent discount for
all payments done on time, the central bank has failed to capitalise on this
offer.

"Although the bank would have wanted to pay these bills, there is
no money everybody is being paid US$100 every month." - ZimOnline

Why Mugabe loves Kariba draft

HARARE - President Robert Mugabe will be able to
serve another two terms - and probably die in office to avoid prosecution
for rights abuses - if his ZANU PF party gets its way in sneaking the
disputed Kariba draft constitution, analysts have warned.

Mugabe and
his party are campaigning for the adoption of the constitution drafted by
negotiators from ZANU PF and the two MDC formations on Lake Kariba in
September 2007.

According to the Kariba draft, the president would be
limited to two five-year terms but the proposed supreme law is silent on the
tenure already served by Mugabe who has led Zimbabwe since the southern
African country's independence from Britain in 1980.

The tenure of
the incumbent as president prior to the proposed new constitution would not
be counted.

"So Mr Mugabe will be eligible to continue in office for
another 10 years," observed law group Veritas.

Constitutional lawyer
and chairman National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairman Lovemore
Madhuku said the Kariba draft was a mere extension of the current
constitution and would further entrench Mugabe's stranglehold on
Zimbabwe.

"There are no major differences between what is proposed in
the so-called Kariba draft and what the current constitution says. In fact,
it will do nothing to limit his powers and ensure fairness in the laws of
the country," said the NCA boss.

University of Zimbabwe political
scientist John Makumbe said Mugabe was unlikely to call for fresh elections
in 2011 as agreed in a power-sharing agreement with Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai but would run the full five-year term to 2013, after which he
would stand for re-election for an additional two terms.

Under the
September 2008 global political agreement between ZANU PF, the MDC and a
breakaway MDC faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara,
Zimbabwe is supposed to hold new elections in early 2011 after the passing
of the new constitution.

"He is not planning on having fresh
elections after the new constitution is in place. He will most probably
shelve plans for new elections so that he serves his current term which runs
until 2013, after which he will start afresh by applying the new
constitution," Makumbe said.

While ZANU PF secretary for administration
and a close Mugabe confidante, Didymus Mutasa, would not say whether Mugabe
intended hanging onto power, he insisted there was nothing that could stop
the veteran leader if he wanted to run for president one more
time.

Mutasa said: "President Mugabe has not committed any crime, if he
did why can't he be taken to court now. There is nothing wrong for him to
continue in power."

The ZANU PF official also insisted that the two
MDC formations had agreed during power-sharing negotiations to have the
Kariba draft as the foundation of a new constitution for
Zimbabwe.

"Those who are opposed to the Kariba draft are lost, the MDC
signed all the pages of the GPA including the ones talking about the Kariba
draft, if they now want to change then they are not supposed to be in
power," he said.

But MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa insisted the party had
not agreed to impose the Kariba draft on Zimbabweans.

Chamisa said:
"Let the people write their own constitution, certain politicians would
literally want to hold the process to ransom but it should be extricated
from their jaws by a people driven process."

Analysts said events of the
past three weeks may have hardened ZANU PF's resolve to push through the
Kariba draft which supports their continued clinging to powers.

The
recent Western tour by Tsvangirai has alerted Mugabe and his ZANU PF
sidekicks of the lurking danger of prosecution for human rights abuses once
they are out of power.

Western countries led by the United States and
Britain have demanded far-reaching political reforms in Harare before
releasing economic aid.

Analysts say Mugabe is aware that his political
survival is at risk once he agrees to a new democratic constitution that
would drastically clip his powers. -- ZimOnline

PM
denies Mugabe sent him on world tour

MARONDERA - Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday
dismissed claims he was assigned by President Robert Mugabe to undertake his
recent international tour in order to canvass for international aid or to
negotiate for the removal of any sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai
said he had instead undertaken the eight nation trip to redefine Zimbabwe's
foreign policy, following a decade of isolation caused by Mugabe's policies
of confrontation.

"I did not go to look for money but to build relations
which were lost in the last 10 years," said Tsvangirai of his tour of the
United States, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway the United
Kingdom and France.

"You can't just go and say, 'Give me money' without
first building friendships."

Tsvangirai was addressing hundreds of
his party supporters who braved the chilly weather to attend the MDC
party's 10th anniversary celebrations held at Rudhaka Stadium in Marondera
on Sunday afternoon.

Tsvangirai said he found it disconcerting that the
state media was reporting that he had been sent Mugabe to beg for money in
Europe.

"We wanted to redefine the foreign policy of this country, and we
achieved that successfully," he said. "I was not sent by Mugabe."

He
drew thunderous applause when he said: "I, as the Prime Minister, have to
make sure that what we decide as cabinet is implemented."

Tsvangirai
said the message from the Western countries whose money the government
required to run government business was very clear.

The Western leaders
were not interested in rhetoric but want to see real change on the ground
before they can commit themselves to giving the country any financial
assistance, he said.

"The leaders of the countries I visited told me that
they are not interested in what we say but what we do," the MDC leader said.
"It's up to us to make reforms and get help."

According to the
Ministry of Finance, Zimbabwe requires a total US$ 8,5 billion to fund
crucial reforms.

Western donors, key to the revival of the battered
economy, have demanded substantial democratic change before they can provide
aid to Zimbabwe.

During his trip to Europe and the United States,
Tsvangirai managed to raise up to US$500 million but the bulk of the money
will be channelled through non-governmental organisations.

Tsvangirai
said since there was a unity government between his party, the MDC faction
led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara and President Mugabe's
Zanu-PF, it was important for the leaders to speak with one voice.

"There
is confusion but we should speak with one voice," he said. "We cannot have
discord; we have to communicate a uniform message."

He admitted, without
elaborating, that there were still a lot of problems facing the
all-inclusive government.

"There are issues that we are still facing but
these can be solved politically," said Tsvangirai. "Conditions of the GPA
must be fulfilled in full and we will do that.

"Eighty percent of the
GPA is about giving Zimbabweans the necessary freedoms."

Tsvangirai
blamed the state media for publishing falsehoods about his trip.

"There
are some who are still resisting this change but only the will of the people
will prevail not even that of individuals or an army," he said. "There is no
greater enemy of Zimbabwe other than those who don't want the will of the
people to prevail.

"The MDC has never had any media. And we have been
scolded over the past 10 years. The media might lie but the people know the
truth.

"If we are in a government together, then why should we separate
and compare who is doing the best? If we are in a national soccer team can
you tell which team is the better between Dynamos and
Highlanders?

American diplomat 'an idiot'

PRESIDENT Mugabe has described US Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs Johnnie Carson as an idiotic little fellow for trying to
lecture Zimbabwe on how to conduct affairs of State.

The President,
who met Carson on the sidelines of the just-ended African Union Summit in
Sirte, Libya, at the request of the US diplomat, said he had been angered by
Carson's condescending attitude.

Responding to a question on whether
anything had come out of the meeting, the first such interaction between the
President and a US government official in years, President Mugabe said he
hoped Carson was speaking in his individual capacity and not for US
President Barack Obama.

''No, you wouldn't speak to an idiot of that
nature. I was very angry with him, and he thinks he could dictate to us what
to do and what not to do in the inclusive Government.

''We have the
whole of Sadc working with us, and you have the likes of little fellows like
Carson, you see, wanting to say: 'You do this, you do that.'

''Who is
he?

''I hope he was not speaking for Obama. I told him he was a shame, a
great shame, being an African-American, an Afro-American for that
matter.''

Sources who attended the meeting said Carson, who succeeded the
abrasive Jendayi Frazer of the George W. Bush era, was briefed on the
process leading to the inclusive Government, the current state of the
coalition Government and working relations between the three parties to the
inclusive Government.

The meeting came in the wake of recent attempts by
the US and its

allies to trash the inclusive Government by claiming that
it was failing to meet set ''benchmarks'' even though all the parties to the
inclusive Government have given the Government a clean bill of
health.

Zanu-PF, MDC-T and MDC leaders have pledged their commitment to
resolving any problems arising from the implementation of the Global
Political Agreement among themselves, saying there was no need to refer
issues to the guarantor of the GPA, Sadc.

During Prime Minister
Tsvangirai's recent tour of Western capitals, where he also met Carson,
among other US officials, the ''benchmarks'' were cited as an excuse to
maintain the illegal sanctions regime on Zimbabwe and to deny the country
development support.

Carson, a career African-American diplomat, served
as US ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1995 to 1997, and ended his tenure just
before the bilateral dispute with Britain flared up.

Zimbabwe shocks the markets with move on mines

ZIMBABWEAN Finance Minister
Tendai Biti shocked the markets on Friday when he announced that Zimbabwe
would re- evaluate all mining contracts and introduce a "use it or lose it"
policy for its mining industry under a proposed law.

The vetting
of mining contracts by Zimbabwe's unity government of President Robert
Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is surprising, coming at a time
when Harare is wooing investors to help repair a battered
economy.

However, Biti was at pains to explain that the new
approach would help revive the country's battered economy, hit by political
turmoil and the introduction of laws limiting foreign ownership of
businesses.

Mining has become the leading
source of foreign exchange, with gold accounting for a third of exports, but
political turmoil, lack of energy and unfavourable regulatory rules have led
to several mines closing.

The unity government has prioritised policy
stability to encourage international investors to unlock funds to revive
business.

Biti also denied newspaper reports on Friday that
Zimbabwe - battling to raise $10bn it says is required to rescue the economy
- will receive $5bn in loans from China in return for platinum
concessions.

He also denied a claim by Tsvangirai that
Zimbabwe had won a $950m credit line from China. "There's no foundation at
all in reports that we have received $950m from
China."

Biti said Zimbabwe was seeking an $80m credit
facility from the Development Bank of Southern Africa to revamp its Hwange
thermal power station and increase coal output at a nearby mine that
supplies coal to the plant.

Giving reasons for amending
mining laws, Biti said Zimbabwe would be complying with the new standards
for extractive industries the World Bank was insisting on.

The
law would introduce the concept of "use it or lose it" for mining
claims.

"It will also introduce the re-evaluation of every mining
contract that has been signed in Zimbabwe."

Not all
experts see the law negatively. Absa gold trader Byron Woods said yesterday
the policy would give miners "an opportunity to grow and invest in their own
mines without mediators. They no longer have to sell to the central bank,
which is a good thing. And now miners can do what they have to do -
mine."

Woods said doing away with stringent laws that had
crippled the industry over the years would mean that in common with other
countries, Zimbabwean miners would now be expected to report to the central
bank on their trading only monthly.

SA
companies ready to start pumping money in Zimbabwe

At least two big, South African, health-related firms
are considering new investments or the increase of existing ones in
Zimbabwe.

Netcare is assessing possible partnerships in Zimbabwe,
according to Jerry Vilakazi, the chief executive of Business Unity SA (Busa)
and the non-executive chairman at Netcare.

Another firm that has
confirmed its interest in investing more in Zimbabwe is Aspen Pharmacare.
Stavros Nicolaou, a senior executive at the pharmaceutical group, said that
while the company had not yet increased its export volumes, it was in
discussions with potential distributors.

Nicolaou said the current
distributors had not been consistent buyers, but a decision had not been
taken on whether to continue with them as well as the new
ones.

Vilakazi, together with Patrice Motsepe, led the business
delegation to Zimbabwe two months ago to start looking for investment
opportunities in that country.

Vilakazi said the other firms that
were keen to move to Zimbabwe were in the financial sector, but he would not
identify them.

He said details would be announced during the investment
conference to be held soon in Johannesburg.

"I am aware of tangible
projects that are going to take place there," said Vilakazi. "The issue of
capital remains a critical one and there are discussions with institutions
in the financial sector.

"We would not want South African companies to be
seen as just moving into Zimbabwe; we are looking at partnering with the
inclusive government."

Massmart, another company that had travelled to
Zimbabwe, referred queries to Busa.

Vilakazi said Busa was also
working with Nir, a Swedish private sector organisation, to build capacity
with the private sector in Zimbabwe.

"The private sector is a vital voice
in Zimbabwe to ensure that things that are important to attract investment
are in place. There are individual companies who are flying in and out of
Zimbabwe to assist," said Vilakazi.

After the April trip, it was agreed
that an investment protection deal would be signed, but this had been
delayed due to administrative reasons. Vilakazi stressed that the principle
had not changed.

"Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies met (Zimbabwe
Finance Minister) Tendai Biti, who confirmed that they were working towards
finalising the investment protection agreement. This agreement is very vital
in this process," said Vilakazi.

The agreement will be an undertaking
from the Zimbabwe government that the rules that business will have to
comply with will not change.

Meanwhile, Imara, the Pan-African financial
services group, organised an international investment conference in Zimbabwe
last week that attracted 40 international fund managers to Harare and
presentations from 14 of the country's largest listed
companies.

According to a statement by Imara, the conference was opened
by Biti, who gave in-depth assessments to visiting analysts.

"This
level of detail, the openness and the obvious intention to create a more
investor friendly environment were just what was needed to kick-start real
engagement with new investors," said Sean Gammon, the managing director at
Imara Capital Zimbabwe.

Violet Gonda: My guest on the programme Hot Seat is Michael
Peter Hitschmann who was released from jail on Thursday. The former police
constable was initially arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate President
Robert Mugabe at his birthday celebration in Manicaland in 2006. He served a
total of 40 months for possessing dangerous firearms without a licence. I spoke
with the firearms dealer on the day he was released and first asked him how he
was feeling.

Michael Hitschmann: I’m fine, very happy to be out as you
can imagine.

Gonda: Can you tell us the events that led to your arrest in
2006?

Hitschmann: Yes, I was arrested on 6th March 2006 following
a tip off that was given to the intelligence agencies by an army major called
Major Phiri, Major Israel Phiri. Major Israel Phiri alleged that I was the
commander, or one of the deputy commanders of the Zimbabwe Freedom Movement, a
military organisation operating from within the armed forces of Zimbabwe and
aiming to topple Mugabe.

Gonda: And did you have anything to do with this Zimbabwe
Freedom Movement?

Hitschmann: I’m not aware that the movement exists, those
were the allegations that were brought against me and in the trial they failed
to prove that (a) the Movement exists, (b) that I was a part of that Movement or
(c) that I had ever planned or plotted anything to do with either the demise of
the President or any other member of his party.

Gonda: And you had spent about a year on remand and the
assassination charges were dropped but you went on to serve two years in jail
for possessing arms without a licence.

Hitschmann: No, what happened is I spent 16 months on
remand, a year and four months. I was denied bail I think at least five or six
times with a claim that I was a danger to national security – based on the
original charge which was the second most serious charge that can be brought to
anyone in this country. The first is treason as the one that was brought against
Morgan Tsvangirai and Tendai Biti. At the time, when these charges were brought,
the only sentence that was available was a life sentence in prison. By the time
we reached July 2006, there had been an amendment to that law which allowed for
any lesser sentence for a life sentence. In any case I spent 16 months in remand
before the trial even kicked off.

Then the trial kicked off, the State knew from the onset they had no basis
for the trial so they played dirty tricks from the beginning by first of all
delaying the trial. So I ended up waiting another, I think it was about eight or
nine months before we completed the trial in July 2007. The original charge
which was the intention to commit acts of terrorism, banditry etc totally
flopped and I was acquitted on that one and I was convicted under the Public
Order and Security Act for possession, possession of dangerous weapons. At the
time, you’ll probably remember, I was a registered firearms dealer and from the
beginning I always admitted having in my possession certain arms of war for
which I should have had special authority from the Minister, and that’s what
they convicted me on.

But that charge had the option of a fine, I think it was 22 million dollars
at the time. I was never given that option and instead I was given a four year
sentence, one year was suspended either by the courts and then I went to prison
for a three year spell. On good behaviour they removed one year so I actually
served two years in jail. So totally I’ve been 40 months in prison between the
conviction and the remand.

Gonda: You were actually appealing against the conviction
and sentence in the Supreme Court, is this the reason why you’ve been released
now?

Hitschmann: If you can believe the system of justice in this
country, you’ll now be aware that my appeal has never been heard. The last time
we went the legal route was in December 2008 when my lawyers applied for bail
pending appeal because the previous application for bail pending appeal had been
denied by Justice Chitakunye citing there would be time, ample time for my
appeal to be heard. That was in September 2007. December 2008, the appeal still
hadn’t been heard and we went back to the judge and said ‘listen our client is
left with a little more than 6 months to serve and the appeal hasn’t been heard,
we’re requesting bail pending appeal.’ His answer was there was yet time for the
appeal to be heard. Today is the 2nd of July, two years after the conviction and
my appeal still hasn’t been heard.

Gonda: Now let’s go back a bit and talk a bit more about the
firearms. You said you are a registered firearms dealer but you were still
charged with possessing arms without a licence and the police said that they
found an arms cache at your house which included AK47 rifles, four FN rifles, 19
pistols and revolvers, 11 shotguns and an assortment of other ammunition. Why
did you have such weapons?

Hitschmann: First of all, as a registered firearms dealer,
most of the firearms that were recovered here at my premises were in gun safes,
there was never any question of an arms cache. If you look at the word cache –
it comes from the word cachet in French which is hidden. An arms cache implies
something that is hidden, either hidden underground or hidden in some other
manner.

The weaponry that was taken from my house was not hidden. All the registered
firearms which had licences and for which I had answered to the police on the
three monthly basis as per the normal routine for a firearms dealer, those
firearms I told them they were all in order and shouldn’t have left these
premises in the first place since they were here legally. That covers the
pistols, the shotguns, hunting rifles and a variety of other rifles.

The ones that were not covered were six firearms and they were one FN not
four as they said, there was one AK, there were some Uzi sub-machine guns and
another H&K sub-machine gun. And over the years that I’ve been operating as
a firearms dealer, since these farm invasions started, I ended up being a
conduit to the police including for arms of war. Because what was happening is
as these farmers were leaving their farms under pressure, some of them were
discovering firearms that were not even theirs, they may have been from
relatives who were deceased, who were alive during the so-called Rhodesian war
and they ended up finding firearms hidden under clothes or whatever and didn’t
know what to do with them.

The police know that I have been a conduit for those firearms, in fact doing
the duty of the State in handing those firearms back to the police. But when
they came to my house and conducted the search, they refused for my lawyers to
be present and removed all our papers from here and in that process they
conveniently made some of the issue vouchers that pertain to handing in of
weapons to the police armoury, they made them disappear.

So by the time we were ready to submit our defence, we were left with only
two issue vouchers, one for 40 weapons from July 2005 and I think another for
four weapons, but they made sure that all the issue vouchers for arms of war
that I had handed in, they had made disappear because they knew that would
strengthen my case even more – because while it’s correct that you have to have
a special permit above and beyond that of a firearms dealer in order to handle
arms of war, nevertheless I was doing a duty that the State was failing to do
because the Central Firearms Registry is in chaos. So as a result I was actually
doing a job that they were supposed to do.

Gonda: So you were actually collecting these arms of war or
these weapons and you were handing them over to the police – some of these
weapons you were getting from the commercial farmers who were leaving the
country.

Hitschmann: Yes, you see I can give you a scenario. Let’s
say you are the daughter of a guy who was alive during that particular war and
he’s late now and you happen to be on that commercial farm with your husband and
the kids etc. You are told to vacate the farm within 24 hours. You end up
sticking all the belongings that you can find in the house, including the trunk,
trunks or other property from your late father which you never tampered with
because you didn’t want to deal with that issue out of grief or whatever. You
throw it onto the truck, you rush into town to escape, including not only from
the farm invaders but even from the police who are forcing you to get off your
premises.

Once you’re in town, you now have to downsize as you have too much stuff so
you start selecting what you want to get rid of and what you don’t want to get
rid of. Lo and behold, you open the trunk which you thought had clothes in it,
and at the bottom of it there’s an AK47 with four magazines. What are you going
to do with it? Are you going to go to the police station? Not likely because you
know what the police are like because you’ve dealt with them on the farm
invasion.

So the next thing that happens, is through the grapevine since I was the only
dealer around here and as an ex-police officer as the commander of border
patrol, I had a good connection with police officers here, so what would happen
is these people would give me the firearms and I would bring them to the armoury
myself. No questions asked, they would be handed in and secured. That way the
weapons would be correctly disposed of so I acted as a conduit for these
firearms to get to where they were supposed to go.

Gonda: How did that conduit arrangement come about? Were you
actually sent by the police to collect the firearms from the farmers?

Hitschmann: No. What happened is the people were forced to
leave the farms in a very short period of time. If you recall, some of them were
only given a matter of hours to leave the farm or days or whatever but whatever
the period of time that was given it was not a period of time that was conducive
to doing a careful check of everything that was being moved. So the farmers
generally would just pile everything onto a seven ton truck and just ship it
into town, the nearest town being here in Mutare. Then once they were in town,
as I said, they usually had to downsize because a farmhouse would be big
compared to these town houses.

So in that process, especially the younger people they would have trunks and
other belongings from people from way back that they hadn’t actually touched,
they just forgot them and in going through those belongings, wanting to dispose
of them or whatever, on more than one occasion, firearms were discovered that
they didn’t even know existed and assumed that uncle so-and-so had had them
during the Rhodesian war but uncle or grandpa or whoever was long dead.

The firearms did not come with me from the farms, they came with the actual
people who were abandoning the farm, they come into town, they discover that
they have got arms of war and they don’t know what to do with them. I was the
registered firearms dealer here and people know me because it is a small
community, also because I was in law enforcement so they come to me and say
right, we’ve got this, what do we do with it? So the conduit was that I would
take those firearms, hold them and in due course, I would move them to the
police provincial armoury at Main Camp here in Mutare. Upon arrival at the
armoury, I knew all the officers because we’d served together, I’d been 15 years
in the force so everyone knew me. So I would say these are firearms that have
come from this particular area whatever, they didn’t care about where they had
come from, all they wanted to know is that they were safe. In other words, they
were unlicensed firearms, firearms of war that needed to be safe, they needed to
be in their armoury and subsequently moved to national armoury in Harare.

When I handed those firearms over I would get a police issue voucher which is
like a receipt which would give you the serial number or any relevant
information. Those issue vouchers were among papers, a lot of papers that were
removed from my office here and when my lawyers went to prepare the defence
looking for the relevant papers to prove the existence of a conduit where arms
of war had passed through me to the police, those papers were conveniently
missing. The hard copies will still be on the issue voucher books of the police
but chances of getting those I think are pretty slim especially with these guys,
the way they handled the case.

Gonda: Right, you said that some of the farmers who came to
you had arms of war like sub-machine guns and AK47 with magazines, so does this
suggest that there may be more of these arms of war on the farms?

Hitschmann: Well, at the moment, most of the farms have been
invaded so I shudder to think in the rest of the country what happened to
firearms that may have been left behind. Because the thing is, it’s not unusual
in countries, especially Third World countries where there has been a form of
struggle or civil war and it’s quite common to have problems with these types of
weapons hanging around. If you look at Mozambique for example, today it’s a
disaster because on top of it they had absolutely no order or law and order or
control of firearms during the Machel regime. So I mean weapons are all over the
place, no-one has a clue where they are, who had them and who’s responsible for
them.

Gonda: I was going to ask that after the war, since you are
a firearms dealer and you are also, I don’t know were you also a soldier in the
war?

Hitschmann: No, I was not a soldier in the war.

Gonda: OK, but I was going to ask that after the war was
there a provision perhaps where people had to go and hand in their firearms?

Hitschmann: Yes. Yes there was. There were various
provisions. For the guerrillas there were the assembly points and for the
Rhodesian forces and civilians and whatever, there were other systems that were
put in place but you have to remember that in the context of these struggles
what often happened is both parties don’t hand in everything.

Gonda: So the firearms that you were receiving, were they
disabled?

Hitschmann: No, they were not.

Gonda: Can you imagine if people were able to get hold of
those things?

Hitschmann: Well if you look at the pattern of violence,
particularly last year before the June re-run there were many reports from
around the country of armed gangs moving around, I think you remember that.
Right, so we don’t know who armed those people. Were they armed from official
armouries or were they using firearms that perhaps might have come from
somewhere else? We don’t know. The key issue when it comes to any type of
firearms, specifically firearms and never mind whether they be arms of war or
otherwise, is there has to be strict control.

And unfortunately, as a reflection of the breakdown in other systems in this
country, Central Firearms Registry for some time now has not been functioning
correctly. So the Central Firearms Registry was the controlling body that had a
system of records on every legal owner of a firearm in the country and that
system is not working properly. It hasn’t been working properly for some time
now, although that does not necessarily cover arms that are not legally held
that was at least the first step in control.

As far as weapons that may have been stashed either by guerrillas or kept by
people whether they be farmers or whatever because if you remember during the
post-80s there were some problems along some of the border areas particularly in
the east of the country and also in Matabeleland where the new government had
actually allowed farmers to be armed for their own protection.

So the issue of firearms or arms of war as we call them, is not something
that only emanates from the liberation struggle, it goes even post-independence.
It was only in around about 2004, 2005 in compliance with SADC legislature that
Zimbabwe decided to withdraw certain types of firearms that had been sold to the
members of the public, which included arms of war. But the way that that recall
was done was again not very well organised. There were adverts in the press but
the follow-up now to actually get those firearms into where they were supposed
to go was poor.

You see there’s a standard problem in Zimbabwe which we’ve been living with
for some time and it’s just got worse, where there’s a problem of resources,
there’s a problem of poor management and there’s a problem of corruption. You
mix the three together and whether we‘re talking about firearms or any other
area where control is needed, those controls are not being put in place or
they’re not being monitored correctly.

Gonda: Right and of course several MDC officials, including
Giles Mutsekwa who’s now the co-Home Affairs minister and Roy Bennett the MDC
deputy minister of Agriculture designate were arrested in connection with your
case and Roy Bennett is still facing charges of attempting to commit acts of
banditry and terrorism. First of all, how were you connected to these MDC
officials?

Hitschmann: What you need to understand is when I was
arrested and others were arrested with me, what the State seemed to be trying to
do, the State intelligence agents seemed to be trying to do, was to construct a
conspiracy. It’s important to remember that because these people tried to build
something which was not there because their agenda was to neutralise as many
people as possible from the opposition.

So first of all, when they publicised the so-called arms cache, I understand
that it was run on ZTV, they claimed that the arms cache was found in the back
of two pickup vehicles near the Holiday Inn in Mutare. Now that’s very strange
because they filmed, the intelligence agents filmed the operation here at my
house and yet ZBC filmed another so-called operation where I didn’t even appear
on this film of vehicles where they claimed the firearms had been recovered.

And when we were tortured at Adams Barracks, because we were taken to a
military barracks for torture during the night in 2006, we were told that we had
to confess and all of us having to confess to about five or six different
scenarios which were dictated to me. So the connection between myself and Giles
Mutsekwa and myself and Roy Bennett and whatever exists in the imagination of
these people, that’s where it exists.

Gonda: You know there were reports saying that you were
tortured to sign prepared confessions and you’ve just mentioned that you were
tortured at Adams Barracks, that’s the army barracks. Now can you tell us more
about these confessions? What were you told to say?

Hitschmann: Well the events of the night of 6th of March
2006 are not very pleasant and I try not to dwell on them too much, but in the
broad sense the confessions that they were looking for was (1) that I personally
was planning to assassinate the President on the 2nd of February 2006 which is
allegedly why they changed the venue of his birthday celebrations at the last
minute from the Showgrounds to Sakubva Stadium. The second supposed confession
was that I was intending to assassinate key Zanu-PF officials here (Mutare) and
in Matabeleland, white farmers who allegedly supported Zanu-PF, some other white
people whose names I didn’t even recognise. The third alleged conspiracy was in
some bomb attacks which had taken place in Mutare some time prior to this
incident. The fourth one, because (Esau) Mupfumi and (Enoch) Porusingazi at the
time were out of favour with the party…

Gonda: These are Zanu-PF officials?

Hitschmann: Yes, the Zanu-PF officials Mupfumi and
Porusingazi were out of favour at the time. They were both in the police cells
at the same time when I was arrested, but they were arrested under charges of
misappropriation and some other issues, I think you might have remembered that
case. So the fifth or sixth confession that I was forced to write involved me
conspiring with them to somehow unseat Mugabe and others from the older members
of the Zanu-PF. So there were a variety of conspiracies which they wanted us to
confess to.

Gonda: So how did they force you to do that? Can you
describe to us what they did to you?

Hitschmann: Well personally I was kicked in the testicles a
few times and then they resorted to using cigarettes on my buttocks but although
that was obviously a terrible experience I was lucky enough to pass out quite
early when they started with the cigarette burns. But more effective was the
fact they had arrested my wife and my son and were detaining them at the police
because in the morning, I cooperated with the confessions because as a seasoned
police officer I knew that the confessions were totally worthless.

What worried me more was the following morning when they wanted me to sign a
Warned and Cautioned Statement at a police station out of town and at that point
I wanted a lawyer to be present, that’s when I was threatened again and added to
that threat was they said that my wife and my son could join me at Adams
Barracks.

So I had no choice but to sign the Warned and Cautioned Statement. But the
Warned and Cautioned Statement and the confessions were not presented in court
because the court accepted as absolute truth the fact that I had been tortured.
Where torture is part of the procedure of the so-called investigations, none of
the papers whether they be confessions or Warned and Cautioned Statements can be
presented as evidence in court. So at the end of the day it was a pointless
exercise for the investigators, so-called investigators.

Gonda: And now I understand that State prosecutors have said
that they want you to be their key witness in the trial against Roy Bennett?

Hitschmann: They’ve never interviewed me or discussed that
with me, I’ve only heard that through the lawyer that apparently the State
claimed in front of the magistrate that I am the State’s witness. So I’m
fascinated to hear from them how they would see me being the State witness.

Gonda: So will you testify as a State witness if they
approach you?

Hitschmann: I have nothing to testify about. I think the
State will have to clarify what it is exactly how they see the connection
between my being a witness and Roy Bennett. The thing doesn’t make any sense
because they’re charging him with exactly the same charge that they charged me
with for which I’ve been acquitted. Roy was nowhere near my premises, he hasn’t
been to my premises, he doesn’t have anything at all to do with my business, he
was not found in any possession of firearms on the 6th of March 2006 so I fail
to see any connection that can be inferred between myself and him in that
particular incident.

Gonda: So why do you think he would be targeted in
particular, especially when all the other MDC officials who were implicated like
Minister Giles Mutsekwa have all been acquitted?

Hitschmann: Well it’s pretty obvious. I think they’re
terrified that Roy Bennett will get into his post as the deputy minister of
agriculture but obviously the main thing on their mind is to avoid at all costs
that he gets into that post.

Gonda: You have said you were unfairly treated, you were
tortured but that you are innocent and that you were a seasoned policed officer,
so do you hold any grudges against your colleagues in the uniformed forces?

Hitschmann: Well first of all, the team that came down to
deal with this issue was from, as far as I’m aware, they were from the Special
Forces, military intelligence and central intelligence organisation and they
were all from out of Mutare because according to what they testified in court,
they claimed that they couldn’t trust Mutare-based people because they may be
loyal or otherwise linked to me. So this was a team that was totally out of this
area. I don’t know any of those people that were involved in the actual torture.
I don’t hold any grudges against my colleagues or others from the uniformed
forces because first of all the number of people who tortured me was probably
around four or five and that’s hardly a representation of our uniformed forces.
Basically you’re talking about a minority that act outside the law. So I don’t
hold grudges against my colleagues and others who are within the uniformed
forces.

Gonda: In you view, they were acting on whose orders?

Hitschmann: I don’t know that.

Gonda: Right. And what about conditions of prisons – we’ve
heard how appalling the situation is in prison but I understand that in
interviews that you’ve done today you said that prison conditions are now better
especially in the last few months?

Hitschmann: That’s correct. Prison conditions in the last
few months have improved but that doesn’t mean to say that they are up to humane
standards but compared to the conditions that we had before which were basically
death camp situation, there’s been a marked improvement.

Gonda: So are you going to take any action against the
State?

Hitschmann: If I sue somebody, I’m suing the State. If I sue
the State it means that Zimbabweans end up paying for my suffering. I don’t
think that that’s actually relevant. My suffering is something that has
happened, it’s taken place, it’s now over, it’s now behind me. I’m not
interested in suing a bankrupt State and then end up with every day Zimbabweans
have to pay for my damages or whatever out of their taxes. We’ve got better
things to do with our money because the country’s broke. So no, I’m not
suing.

Gonda: So what’s next for you?

Hitschmann: I don’t know. At the moment I’m unemployed,
thanks to this State conviction I can’t work because I used to work in security
related field. So with this conviction it’s impossible for me to do so again
because all security work falls under the authority of Home Affairs. So I think
for the moment I’m happy to be with my family, with my friends, we’re going to
relax together, try and catch up on lost time and then I’ll plan my future from
there, but I’m here in Zimbabwe, I’m not going anywhere.

Gonda: OK, now that was Michael Hitschmann speaking to us on
the day that he was released from Mutare Prison. Thank you very much
Michael.

Mozambique's national news agency AIM quoted Mozambican
Energy minister Salvador Namburete as saying that while its neighbour was
failing to pay its bill, there were no immediate plans to switch power off,
as the supply constituted Mozambique's helping its neighbour recover from
its economic crisis.

"The Zimbabwean inclusive government needs
our help at the level of the Southern African Development Community in order
to recover from its economic crisis, and later it can pay its
credits."

This was not the first time that Zimbabwe Electrical
Supply Authority (ZESA) failed to pay for power from Cahora Bassa. Last year
Mozambique pulled the plug for 10 days to force ZESA pay an accumulated debt
of US10 million dollars.

Namburete told the Maputo-based
news agency that in April, Zimbabwe's minister of energy visited Maputo to
negotiate for more time to pay until the country was
"organised".

"Naturally this is a political agreement, but the
parties to the agreement, HCB and ZESA need to sit down and set out specific
dates for the repayment of the credit," said Namburete.

The
Cahora Bassa dam's hydro-electric project on the Zambezi River supplies
Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa and Malawi. - Sapa

Zimbabwe Vigil Diary – 4th July 2009

Another baking hot Vigil, this time
enlivened by a passing parade of drag queens from the annual Gay Pride march.
Despite Mugabe’s close interest in gays, they were more interested in their
gorgeous plumage than Zimbabwean human rights abuses.

As always, there were many newcomers
to the Vigil and much discussion of the situation back home. Supporters are
worried at suggestions that the timescale for new elections may be pushed back.
This comes not only from Zanu-PF. The rationale is that the country is not ready
and there may be violence etc. The Vigil insists that the timescale envisaged
in the GPA be honoured. This provided for a new constitution within 18 months
followed by elections.

During his visit to London Morgan
Tsvangirai appealed to the diaspora to return home. The Vigil believes there is
little prospect of this until an MDC government is in power. We think that the
longer it takes to get rid of Mugabe the less likely it is that Zimbabweans will
return home in any numbers. The reason is that people are putting down roots in
their new countries: children are at school etc.

The Vigil has received a letter from
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in response to our request to the Foreign
Secretary not to grant visas to Zimbabwe ministers
on the EU travel ban list. The letter says the EU allowed exemptions to attend
intergovernmental meetings for political dialogue which promotes democracy,
human rights and the rule of law in Zimbabwe. The Vigil
believes this must include free and fair elections – our one and only demand.

Attendance was a bit down this week
but we notice that our partner organisation ROHR was having no less than six
meetings today around the UK: Bedford,
Wolverhampton,
Woking, Bournemouth,
Liverpool and
Manchester. In the
first half of this year 2,040 people came to the Vigil at least once. This
approaches the figure for the whole of last year (2,421).

You will be pleased to hear that Sue
Toft’s eye operation seems to have been a success though she has been unable to
rejoin us as yet. Thanks to her daughter Francesca for standing in for her and
also to Caroline who comes all the way from Exeter to help us out.
Thanks also to Cleopas Tapambwa, a faithful supporter, who lends a hand
everywhere and lends two hands to the drumming.

The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe
Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place every
Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights
in Zimbabwe. The Vigil
which started in October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored,
free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk.

Zimbabwe:
Where money comes first, health second

With half her body immersed in muddy red
water, Esther Nyarambi closely inspects the contents of her wooden panning
dish, locally known as zamba.

Having spent the entire day pounding
gold-bearing rock, she hopes her efforts will be rewarded with even the
smallest nugget of gold.

As most other artisanal gold miners in the
Nyamahumbe and Chishapa areas of the gold-rich Shamva district in Zimbabwe's
Mashonaland Central province, Nyarambi carelessly adds a cap of mercury to
the zamba to extract the precious metal.

She knows little of the
toxicity of mercury and the huge health risks she exposes herself
to.

With her bare hands, the 26-year-old mixes the contents of the wooden
dish until the fluid mercury wraps itself around tiny particles of gold
dust, making a nugget.

"People exposed to it show signs of irritability, mood swings, a
nervous body system and bleeding gums.

"Failure to concentrate has
also been reported on those exposed to the metal," he said. Mercury is a
particular threat to pregnant women and their unborn
babies."

Desperate to find gold and a way out of poverty, Nyarambi and
her fellow illegal miners are not bothered by potential health
risks.

"Mercury is easy and fast to use when extracting gold dust from
the ore. After crushing the stones that hold the gold ore, mercury makes the
job easier and removes all impurities from the gold," explains
Nyarambi.

"I have heard it causes ill health if you inhale it, but I
don't do that. I only use it to gather tiny gold specks. I have been using
mercury for the past five years and never had any problems," she
adds.

Thousands of poor and unemployed youths and adults have trekked to
Shamva district, which is reported to have rich deposits of alluvial gold,
hoping to strike it rich.

INSIDE ZIMBABWE: BILL CORCORAN revisits a township
outside Harare to see what has happened since the cholera epidemic ravaged the
country and the opposition joined an inclusive government in February

THE FILTH surrounding the Highfield home where
Kezener Katoma and her family lived last September has changed little in the
nine months since The Irish Times unexpectedly called.

Raw sewage still bubbles up from the broken drainage
system which runs next to her modest two-room house on the corner of 121st
street in the Harare township, while across the road mounds of decaying refuse
remain piled as high as your knees.

When Zimbabwe’s rival political parties signed the
powersharing deal last year – which eventually led to the formation in February
of a transitional government – hopes were high that the city’s basic
infrastructure and services, which had collapsed through neglect, could be
revived.

But the only noticeable changes to the depressing
scene encountered nine months ago is the absence of the elderly Katoma and her
children, who no longer occupy the house.

The 66-year-old and her young charges have been
replaced by another woman who has two snot-nosed kids in tattered clothes, both
of whom eye me suspiciously from inside their half-open front door.

Happy Munemo and her brood are the house’s new
occupants, and she says that by the time she arrived at the premises a few
months ago it had stood empty for some time.

A neighbour had warned her though that her
predecessor Katoma, who had appeared sickly when interviewed in September, had
gone to the hospital early this year with what people thought was
cholera.

“I do not know what happened to her [Katoma], but she
never came back to this place. I have been living here for a few months now,”
said Munemo as she stoked a small fire on which a pot of water was boiling; most
high-density townships have no electricity for 18 hours a day.

According to the most recent report from the United
Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 98,522 suspected
cases and 4,282 deaths from cholera have been reported in the country since the
outbreak of the water-borne disease last August.

While new cholera cases and deaths in Zimbabwe have
been declining steadily since the onset of the dry season a few months ago, the
overall infection rate has been far higher than the UN body first predicted due
to the collapse of the healthcare and local government systems early last
year.

When asked if many people had become sick from
cholera, Munemo replied that after the disease first took hold there were many
deaths.

“Many people here got sick and died and people just
buried them. They were not seen by the NGOs. They are supposed to be spraying
disinfectant to kill disease now, but that has not happened. It is better here
than in many other areas though.

“The authorities [the unity government] have new
cars, but they are not coming here to fix the sewage system. There is no change.
People are not getting so sick at the moment because it is dry, but we are
afraid of what will happen when the rains come again [in November],” she
said.

Down the street at a scrap yard Charles Dzawanda (38)
and his friends are burning clean old metal sheeting collected from around
Highfield as a means to make a living. With 95 per cent of the population
unemployed, Zimbabweans do whatever they can to earn cash.

The idea is to cut lengths of metal from the sheeting
and sell them as doors to shack dwellers. Dzawanda said he makes about $50 (€36)
a month from his endeavours, which helps to feed his wife and
children.

“It’s not enough,” he says, “but it is all I can do
to make an income. Customers come to us because we are much cheaper than the
companies that sell metal from shops”.

Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has just returned from a tour of western
nations where he has been asking for aid to the tune of $9 billion (€6.5
billion) to help kick start the country’s crippled economy and create
employment.

However, because of lack of progress in implementing
the details of the powersharing pact between the MDC and President Robert
Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party – the latter is being accused of reneging on elements he
agreed to – donor aid has been withheld.

Tsvangirai only secured about $500 million in
increased aid, and even that is to be channelled through non-governmental
organisations for fear of Zanu-PF trying to use it for its own
benefit.

The only country to come up with significant donor
aid to date has been China, which has promised to loan Zimbabwe $950
million.

The owner of the local bus company, M Mandera, says
he hopes some of the money would be made available to the cash-strapped banks,
as local companies need loans if they are to get businesses going again. “The
banks need to provide loans. I need money to fix the buses which have fallen
into disrepair. Petrol is expensive, at $1.50 per litre, and it takes 500 litres
to fill the bus. It’s hard to keep the company running as I have 52 employees.
My business will only survive if we get cheaper petrol.”

Despite the difficult environment in which
Zimbabweans still find themselves, Dzawanda says many people are still
cautiously optimistic regarding the unity government.

Since it came into existence, he says he has seen a
positive change in the townships’ atmosphere. “It was so tense, as there were
MDC and Zanu-PF in the same areas but now it is better and we can relax
more.”

Africa's Perennial Rulers

Written by Etim AnimSunday, 05 July
2009Mugabe says only God can remove him from office. Of course, God
will in the fullness of time...Omar Bongo, the perennial ruler of
Gabon, finally died in office a few weeks ago and brought rudely home the
story of Africa. Its woes are tied directly to despots who treat the
continent's nation-states as personal fiefdoms.

There seems
also to be a larger problem; the people of the continent don't care. I had a
shocking encounter with some senior university officials a few months ago.
As Mugabe was unleashing mayhem on the opposition in the stalemated
aftermath of Zimbabwe's last election, the world stood aghast as the
85-year-old maximum leader swore that only God could remove him from the
"throne." Meanwhile he had clearly lost the presidential election as well as
the parliamentary election. The question on the minds of rational people
was, "Why is he doing this to a country he fought so hard to establish?"
Shock when the university people - highly placed bureaucrats and academics -
said there was nothing wrong with what Mugabe was doing.

In
other words, there must be something in the African heritage that causes
Africans to cling to positions of authority at all costs. The university
used to be an institution where the minds of people naturally turned in the
direction of analysis and query of the status quo. But these university
people were so convinced about the rightness of Mugabe's cause that the
massive suffering and frequent blood-letting afflicting the Zimbabwean
people, the real owners of the land and the power that politicians and
military men exercise, did not matter to them.

They were content to
resort to the time-worn whipping boy of neo-colonialism as being responsible
for the collapse of the Zimbabwean nation-state. It is true that colonialism
has left some indelible scars on the peoples of Africa. But does it ever
occur to those who blame every African fault on colonialism that Africans
were not the only colonised people in the world? Many others, especially in
the Asian continent, have shaken off the vestiges and psychology of
colonialism and taken the fate of their peoples in their hands.

Is it not time to wonder whether something other than colonialism and its
spin-off, neo-colonialism, is responsible for Africa's virtual standstill?
Might that something not be associated with the African's love for power and
position even if the power grabber has little or nothing to offer? The
African leaders who claim a monopoly of knowledge of how to solve their
countries' problems are nothing but liars and cheats. Can't the people who
support them in that mindless contention see what is happening elsewhere in
the world with spectacular results? Can't they see what regular change in
leadership does for the other peoples of the world? Can't the young people
of Africa, in particular, see that the future lies with the young everywhere
in the world and that youthful leaders - from Jack Kennedy to Rajiv Ghandi,
from Bill Clinton to Tony Blair and Barack Obama - have shown what a
combination of youth and change can do, if the youths are properly groomed
and given the chance? How can it be an admirable cultural thing for leaders
to stay in power until they are removed by death from old age?

Take a look at Africa. Bongo died after 42 years in power. Muammar Gaddafi
of Libya has stayed for 39 years in the saddle. Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo has
held the people of Equatorial Guinea in a bear-hug for 30 years. Like
Mbasogo, President Eduardo dos Santos has been at the helm in Angola for 30
years. Hot on his heels is Mugabe at 29; at the number 5 slot is Egypt's
Hosni Mubarak, who succeeded his assassinated compatriot, Anwar Sadat, 27
years ago. Paul Biya has ruled Cameroon for 26, as Yoweri Museveni has in
Uganda for 23; tied with Museveni is the absolute monarch of Swaziland, King
Mswati III. Blaise Compraore, who murdered his friend and leader, Thomas
Sankara, has hung on to power in Burkina Faso for 21 years. On the other
side of North Africa is President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who as the only
second leader of Tunisia since independence, has been in power for 21 years.
In the Horn, Meles Zenawi has held sway in Addis Ababa for 18 years; his
former comrade-in-arms to the north, Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea, has "sat on
the throne" for 16 years.

Mugabe is 85; Mubarak is 81; Biya is 76;
Ben Ali is 73.Obiang, dos Santos, and Gaddafi are 67; Museveni is 65;
Compraore is 58, while Mswati III is 41. The Swazi monarch came to power at
the age 18; based on current African form, if he lives to be as old as
Mugabe, he will be in power for 67 years! Can anybody explain to me what
these people have to offer to their countries which they could not have
shown all these decades? Before them were Mobutu Sese Seko, Gnassingbe
Eyadema, Lansana Conte, Kenneth Kaunda, and Kamazu Banda, to mention just
some. What spectacular things did they really do for their countries? The
infamous Nigerian Third Term Agenda was all in line with the African
tradition of perennial rule.

Can't the people of Africa see that
these perennial rulers love not the country but the power and the glory and
the control they have over the till? Bongo's family is said to own at least
33 luxury properties worth $190 million in France. A 1999 US Senate
investigation into Citibank estimated that Bongo had $130 million in the
bank.

Mugabe says only God can remove him from office. Of course,
God will in the fullness of time. Then will he join fellow Africans like
Sese Seko, Eyadema, Lansa Conte, and Bongo - and all mortals, who came naked
into this world and it is certain they will take nothing away. They will
mainly be remembered for what they did not do.

A Gabonese woman
said in a radio interview that the day Omar Bongo died was a good day for
Gabon. How sad!

The short-listing of candidates from
among the large number of applicants has not been
completed.

Minister
of Finance’s Mid-Term Policy Statement

Minister Biti has said
this will be presented to Parliament on 16th July. “This will be a report card
basically explaining how we have done so far”. He also said that he will be
making serious policy pronouncements aimed at boosting the country’s economy and
reviewing taxes.

Mines
and Minerals Amendment Bill?

This Bill has a long
history: following closely on the passage of the Indigenisation and Empowerment
Act, it was actually tabled in Parliament in October 2007 as part of the ZANU-PF
Government’s indigenisation and empowerment drive. But the Bill was not taken
any further – it was not even debated – and it automatically fell away when
Parliament was dissolved in January 2008 ahead of the harmonised elections. The
Bill was in two parts – one providing for the indigenisation of the mining
industry [including stipulating 51% “indigenous” ownership of mining
companies], the other for the
modernisation of the Mines and Minerals Act. It was listed for re-introduction
as part of the ZANU-PF Government’s legislative programme for the current
Parliamentary session in President Mugabe’s speech opening Parliament in August
last year. At the moment the 2007 Bill is being considered by Minister of Mines
Obert Mpofu for resuscitation with possible changes. A new draft would have to
be approved by Cabinet before it can go any further. The Prime Minister has
said that the 51% is too high and must be lowered to encourage foreign
investment,raising hopes that any
replacement Bill will be more investor-friendly. [Electronic
2007 Bill available]

Legislative
Agenda

Most of the
Legislative Agenda seems to consist of announcements in the press of impending
Bills. Neither the Cabinet Office nor the Prime Minister’s Office has issued a
statement on what Bills have been approved by Cabinet. The first step in
drafting a Bill is to get a policy go-ahead from Cabinet, then the Bill is
drafted by the relevant Ministry in conjunction with the drafting section of the
Attorney Generals Office. The final draft of the Bill then has to go back to
Cabinet for final approval. If it is approved, Cabinet authorises the
responsible Minister to send it to Parliament. Parliament then has it
gazetted. It must be gazetted two weeks before it is tabled in
Parliament.

Public Finance,
Audit Office and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Bills – these three
Ministry of Finance bills have been approved in principle by Cabinet and they
are now with the Ministry and the legal drafters for preparation of the final
drafts. The final drafts must go back to Cabinet for approval. Until finally
through Cabinet and sent to Parliament the Bills cannot be said to be in the
“Parliamentary pipeline”.

Information
Communication Technology Bill – Minister Nelson
Chamisa said he will be seeking Cabinet’s policy approval for this Bill on the
14th July – which means that if approval is granted, the Bill still has to be
drafted and go back to Cabinet for final approval. The Bill is intended to
cover licensing and regulation of telecommunications, broadcasting and postal
services and the facilitation and regulation of electronic communications and
transactions; it will involve the repeal of the Postal and Telecommunications
Act and the Broadcasting Services Act.

Bills to replace
AIPPA – the Ministry of
Information, Media and Publicity is working on two Bills to replace AIPPA – one
to regulate access to information, the other to provide for “administrative”
registration of media and journalists. But neither Bill has been taken to
Cabinet yet.

Other
Bills listed in the Short
Term Emergency Recovery Programme [STERP], e.g., Bills amending POSA, the
Criminal Law Code, Urban Councils Act, etc. would have to go through the same
process and therefore it is unlikely that any of these Bills will be ready
soon.

Parliamentary
Committee Meetings Open to Public

[Note:
although these meetings are listed as open to public attendance – if you wish to
attend, it is advisable to clear attendance with Parliament beforehand by
telephoning 700181and asking for the relevant committee
clerk.]

Public
Accounts Committee – oral
evidence from the Ministry of Local Government, Rural and Urban and Development
and the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Infrastructure Development
[Monday
6th July at 10 am Committee Room No. 4]

More
Parliamentary News

Select Committee on
the New Constitution – is busy
organising the First All Stakeholders Conference which will go ahead as
scheduled from Friday 10th to Sunday 12th July at the Harare International
Conference Centre. Invitations will be faxed or delivered to organisations and
delegates on Monday 6th July.

Senate thematic
committees – no meetings
scheduled

Senator Roy
Bennett – Deputy Minister of
Agriculture designate Bennett has been remanded to 13th October despite his
lawyer’s protests against the failure to bring the matter to trial four months
after Mr Bennett’s arrest. Mr Bennett is still not sworn in as Deputy
Minister.

Overdue
by-elections – no
notices have been gazetted calling these by-elections [see
Bill Watch Special of 17th May for details] and no explanation
has been forthcoming from the government for its failure to comply with the
law.

Update on
Inclusive Government

Referral to SADC Summit –
Unconfirmed reports say SADC will convene a meeting before the end of July to
discuss the issues that remain outstanding in the Interparty Political Agreemen
[IPA].

The Prime
Minister has endorsed his deputy Thokozane
Khupe’s statement expressing MDC-T frustration with the slow pace of
implementation of the IPA and the MDC-T Cabinet boycott, but said that MDC-T
would not pull out of the inclusive government.

President
Mugabe gave the keynote address on “Food
Security” at the 13th AU Summit which opened on Wednesday in Libya.

SADC Report on IPA to the AU
Summit – The AU Summit communiqué
commended steps SADC had taken, welcomed progress made in the implementation of
the IPA and appealed for the immediate lifting of sanctions and for provision of
financial assistance to Zimbabwe by AU states and the wider
international community.[AU Summit communiqué available on
request.]

International Monetary
Fund [IMF] concluded, after their staff
visited Zimbabwe, 22nd to 30th June, that there were signs of a “nascent
economic recovery”, but although its staff will continue to provide
policy advice and targeted technical assistance, “access to IMF financing would
require donor financial support for arrears clearance to official creditors and
a sustained track record of sound policies”. [Full text of statement available on
request.]

Re-engagement with the
Commonwealth – this week there will be a
roundtable discussion in Johannesburg, organised by the Commonwealth Committee on
Zimbabwe, aimed at the
mobilisation of humanitarian aid and paving the way for Zimbabwe’s
possible re-admission into the 54-nation Commonwealth. [Zimbabweleft the Commonwealth in
December 2003.]

Provincial
Councils for Bulawayo and Harare?

It is reported that the
Government is considering setting up provincial councils for the two
metropolitan provinces of Bulawayo and Harare to promote
development. These are the only provinces that do not already have provincial
councils. The establishment of a provincial council is a matter for decision by
the President and Cabinet jointly, not for the President alone. The legal
mechanism for establishment is the publication of a proclamation in the
Government Gazette in terms of the Provincial Councils and Administration
Act.[Electronic
version of Act available on request.]The functions of
provincial councils are all development-related; they have few real powers –
they cannot, for instance, make regulations or by-laws. A provincial council
consists of the provincial governor [who chairs its meetings], the
mayor/chairperson and one other member of every local authority council in the
province, one chief nominated by the chiefs of the province, and three persons
appointed by the President on the advice of Cabinet [one each to represent women
and youth, and one appointed for skill and experience in the province’s
political affairs] [PCA Act, section
14].

Launch of Makoni
Party

Former Finance Minister Simba Makoni
launched his Mavambo-Kusile-Dawn party on Wednesday morning in Harare, promising to bring
what he called “real change” and a commitment to service rather that the
politics of power and control. He called for national healing, restoration of
civil liberties and economic and social viability. The launch was somewhat
marred by his erstwhile colleagues in the movement who have recently taken him
to court and who declared the launch null and void.

Kimberley
Process Team Visits Zimbabwe Diamond
Fields

At the end of its
mission to Zimbabwe the Kimberley Process review team presented its provisional
report, pointing out that lack of security had led to illegal digging and
processing activities, recommending immediate demilitarisation of the Chiadzwa
diamond field [“There cannot be effective security where diamonds are concerned
with the involvement of the military”], stricter border controls to prevent
diamond smuggling and better control from place of production to point of
export. A final report will follow later. There were accusations in some press
reports that there was an army “clean up” of the diamond fields before the
inspection by the Kimberley Process team.

Update
on Legislation

Bills – no Bills being are
being printed by the Government Printer for gazetting and presentation in
Parliament.

Acts – the new Census and
Statistics Act [Act 1/2007] came into operation on 1st July [date fixed by SI
101A/2009 gazetted on 1st July]. This Act was gazetted on 20th July 2007. It
transforms the Central Statistical Office into the National Statistics Agency, a
fully-fledged parastatal. It also provides for the formulation of professional
standards and ethics to be adhered to by all organisations that produce
statistics for public information. Regulations made under the old Act will
continue in force. [Electronic version of Act available on
request.]

Statutory
Instruments – SI 103/2009
[amendment of Exchange Control (General) Order of 1996] increases to US$10 000
the amount of foreign currency that may be taken out of the country by
travellers [up from US$ 1 000].

Note: There is a statutory
instrument expected on extending the suspension of customs duty on groceries and
other basic commodities [the last SI to this effect expired on 30th June.] It
is possible this SI was gazetted late on 3rd July or over the weekend..

Veritas makes
every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal
responsibility for information supplied.